How is Obama planning on competing in the Super-Duper Tuesday states? Ambinder:
Obama and his surrogates will operate under the assumption that the more aggressive Hillary Clinton campaigns, the more outbursts Bill Clinton has, the more voters in interior red and purple states will find the Clintons off-putting and that the negative feelings will obscure the Clinton mantra that only she (and he) can stand up and protect their interests.
Advisers believe that the more the Clintons poke at Obama, the more sympathetic he becomes, and the more she plays into his contention that she's a divisive, polarizing figure; Obama's polling shows and his campaign's strategists sense that it reminds Democrats in the interior of the country of the Clinton of yore: cold, unlikable, sarcastic -- and coastal. In states like Arizona, Kansas and Idaho and Missouri, Clinton will scare off independents and will lose support among younger women, in particular.Also: Obama's brain trust believes that Clinton's decision to essentially cede South Carolina to him will backfire, as it will allow him to demonstrate that Iowa was not a fluke -- he can turnout young voters everywhere -- and, that African Americans will resent her refusal to participate in "their" primary.
The coastal prizes of California and New York will be tough, but Obama may well do better in enough congressional districts to keep the margins close -- better, Obama's team believes, than Clinton will do in the interior of the country.
Purple and Red-state surrogates abound: Gov. Janet Napolitano and Sen. Claire McCaskill will argue, in subtle terms, that only Obama can unify the country, which will be interpreted as a knock against Clinton's downward pull on other Demcorats on the ballot.
The concern is out there: one reason Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, carefully tended to by the Clinton world, has stayed neutral is that she fears that having Clinton on the ticket would hurt other Democrats in her state, a Clinton adviser who spoke to Sebelius said.
Once again, the campaign has one theory and the national political press corps has another.
The coverage so far has centered on the notion that Obama allowed Bill Clinton to break his stride and mess up his head, forcing him to spend half of his stump speech reciting and rebutting Clinton allegations. His unsurprising assumed victory South Carolina would reinforce the perception that Obama appeals only to young, rich, white people and to black voters.
It's the last two paragraphs that explain why I think this is such a high-risk, high-reward strategy. If the media continues to report this as "Obama is getting flustered" then he has a problem. If it shifts to "Bill is making problems for Hillary," however, I think the shift over to Obama, particularly in the Midwest and Mountain West, could be big.
In the end, I'm not really sure Obama has much of a choice here. Had he drawn a quick knockout, Bill would likely have never gotten directly involved. It would have been too little, too late, with far too much for him to lose. Now that it is clear that the contest is going to be a long one, however, Bill had (from his perspective, at least) no choice but to step up. Suddenly the threat from Obama was real, and for the first time both Bill and Hillary were forced to imagine the very real possibility that their dynasty was coming to an end. With that at stake, Bill no doubt felt compelled to act. After all, if his wife is rejected, so is he. As he said during the 1992 campaign, you vote for one of them and as a bonus you get them both. As is becoming increasingly clear, that's no less true today than it was back then.
So the question is now this: will the media narrative change? Early evidence - see here, here, and here, says that it very well may. Stay tuned...
UPDATE: More here, here, and here. Obama is clearly going with this as a vcentral theme of his message today. Will the press follow?
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